Chapter Text
“Devyn! Get your butt out here! I’m gonna be late!” yelled Astrid Maarten, leaning out the window of her rusty, baby-shit orange PT Cruiser.
“Hang on!” her sister called, briefly sticking her head out of the screen door. “I need to find my gym shoes!”
Astrid growled and flopped back on her seat. Devyn raced around the front of the car and threw herself into the passenger seat, tossing her backpack, messenger bag and a pair of runners into the back seat.
“You’re slower than molasses. What was wrong with the shoes you’re currently wearing?” asked Astrid, peeling out as much as the decrepit car could manage.
Devyn indicated her sneakers. “These have a black sole. We’re not allowed to wear these in the gym. The floor just got waxed.”
“And this was important enough to risk making me late?”
The younger girl made a face. “I don’t want detention. It doesn’t look good.”
Astrid sighed and said nothing. Devyn was determined to be a nurse and her schools of choice were Johns Hopkins, Duke or Emory. If she wanted to attend those schools, she needed scholarships and she was paranoid about doing anything that might damage her chances.
“Well, it’s not good if I lose my job either.” she said eventually.
A sigh. “I know. Sorry.”
“Just… Try and get your shit together a bit earlier.”
“Yeah, yeah…”
They soon reached Devyn’s high school. She snatched up her shoes and bags, said a hurried good bye and pelted up the sidewalk to the front doors.
Then Astrid drove to her job. It wasn’t anything special, but jobs that paid well enough that you only needed one were in short supply. She worked in a warehouse as an associate. She’d been a jock in school and moving around heavy boxes had only accentuated muscles that had been built in the wrestling ring.
She signed in, put her steel-toed boots and hard hat on and got to work.
By the end of the day, she was grubby, sweaty and her already scarred knuckles had been skinned open once again. She threw herself into the worn seat of her car and closed her eyes. Weariness dragged at her bones. She would have liked nothing better than to take a nap, but Devyn needed picking up from school and then there was dinner to make.
She opened her eyes, buckled up and turned the car on.
Devyn was waiting on the grass beside the parking lot, binder open over her knees as she started on her homework. She looked up, hearing the familiar engine sounds and gathered her things.
She grinned at Astrid as she got in.
“Well? What did you get?”
“I got an A+!” she crowed, waving her biology exam like a flag.
Astrid grinned and gently punched her in the shoulder. “That’s awesome! You certainly studied long enough.”
“Oh God, I know . I coulda sworn that those cell diagrams were tattooed on the inside of my eyelids .”
Astrid did some quick mental math. They could afford this. She’d gotten some overtime recently, so her bank account had more padding than usual. She wouldn’t even need to dip into her meager savings. “Wanna get a treat? In celebration?”
Devyn’s eyes widened. “Can we?”
“Yeah.”
“What should we get?”
“I dunno, you’re the one that got an A+.”
She thought for a moment. “Doughnuts at Cozycake?”
“Can do!” Astrid replied, starting up the car.
Cozycake was a little independent bakery and cafe. They had good coffee and phenomenal doughnuts. Nothing super fancy or trendy, but everything was well made. It had long been the celebratory treat of choice for Astrid and her family. It was kind of out of the way for them, since they’d moved to the other side of the city, but they still made it down there once in a while.
The street it was on had gotten trendier over the years. The city had been trying to fix up its core for years and it seemed to be working, at least in this area.
The sisters ordered six doughnuts to split. Two sour cream glazed, a Boston cream, two chocolate and an apple fritter.
They decided to wander the street, window-shopping as they ate. It was nice pretending to just be sisters for a while. Astrid had to fill the role of parent far too often.
Their mother had died of pancreatic cancer when Astrid had been thirteen. Her treatments had wiped out the Maarten’s savings and they’d lost their house under the crushing medical debt. Their father hadn’t taken any of it well. He struggled to hold it together for a couple years, but it had eventually been too much for him. Now he was rarely home, having switched to long-haul trucking instead of local deliveries. When he was home, he spent most of the time drunk.
Those last couple of years of high school had been hard for them. The two sisters had been left basically alone for weeks at a time and Astrid had begun to step into the role of parent, doing most of her sister’s raising. She herself had been an… uneven student at best, compared to Devyn’s stellar marks. Astrid had decided to put her own plans on hold so her sister could get into the school she wanted.
The finish line was now so close. She’d only have to spend a few more months bruising herself in that warehouse before Devyn could be off at university.
Then she’d do… Something.
Astrid had been avoiding the thought. It was amazing, something she was looking forward to for years and now it was coming up so quickly and she was terrified .
Her own mediocre marks meant that she wasn’t destined for any top post secondary schools. She’d liked sports and had been quite good at wrestling. Her height had given her the advantage in basketball, though she hadn’t been scholarship worthy. She’d also enjoyed History and Math, but again, nothing had been particularly exemplary.
Astrid thought she might like to travel a bit, see such exotic countries such as Portugal, Cambodia and Chile.
Or maybe she’d figure out how to be a teacher and help other young folks achieve their dreams.
Or maybe she’d just get a shitty camper and a truck and bum around North America until she got bored.
As much as those things appealed to her, she had the awful feeling that if she wasn’t careful she'd find herself still working a shitty menial job until her body gave out and then she’d never be able to leave fucking Chattanooga. Her bones would be stuck here, just like her mother’s.
She looked down at her younger sister, who was enthusiastically eating her second doughnut. If Devyn could get out, then maybe she could too, with nothing else really tying her to the city.
They reached the end of the trendy area at about the same time as they finished the doughnuts.
“Shall we head back to the car?”
“I guess so. I’ve got some homework to do.”
Astrid wiped her sticky fingers on a napkin and then turfed it and the empty box into the trash. “Let’s go back through this way. It’s shorter to get back to the parking lot.”
They headed down the alley, enclosed by the old brick buildings and newer high rises of gleaming glass. The pavement was pocked by potholes half full of grimy water, bloated cigarette butts lurking in the depths.
As they passed by the mouth of a narrower intersecting alley, they heard a deep groan.
Astrid grimaced and made to keep going.
However, Devyn stopped and peered down the shadowy alley, craning her head like a bird to try and see past the stacks of pallets and rows of trash cans.
“C’mon. It’s probably a hobo who drank too much.” Astrid said in a low voice.
“Lemme go see if they’re okay.”
“ Devyn! ”
Her sister ignored her and continued down the alley.
Astrid growled and marched after her. It wouldn’t look very good if her tiny little sister walked into potential danger whilst big, muscular Astrid hung back.
“There’s… someone here?” Devyn said uncertainly. “I think they’re hurt?”
“Why do you sound confused? Are they or aren’t they?”
Devyn lifted a sagging cardboard box out of the way and sucked in a breath.
“What? What is it?” Astrid leaned over. She jolted and wrapped an arm around Devyn, dragging her back. “What the fuck is that thing?”
“Hey! Quit it!”
“Uh, no .” She pulled her back a few more feet, brown eyes locked on the fallen thing .
What she could see was human-shaped. It had the expected number of limbs and it was big and muscular. That was about where the resemblance ended. Its skin was a pale, yellowish green, dappled in dark green. It had black bristles poking up here and there, reminding Astrid of a crab or spider. Its hands and feet had claws . She could see little of its face, as it was half-covered with thick, smooth dreadlock-like tendrils that tumbled like snakes over it, but what she could see did not have human proportions. Something was wrong with the line of the cheekbone and jaw.
What little clothing it wore consisted of fishnet, armour plates and little trinkets made of bone or tooth.
“What the fuck is that thing?”